Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) are the cornerstones of analytical precision in mining. For a laboratory to provide reliable data, it must follow rigorous protocols that monitor every stage of the analytical process.
In high-volume mining labs, manual QA/QC monitoring is often inefficient and prone to human error. This is where an automated LIMS becomes essential.
Statistical Monitoring Best Practices
Effective QA/QC monitoring involves several key practices:
- Insertion of Standards: Regularly inserting Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) to verify accuracy.
- Duplicate Analysis: Running duplicate samples to monitor precision and reproducibility.
- Blank Samples: Using blanks to detect contamination during preparation or analysis.
- Statistical Control Charts: Monitoring performance over time through Shewhart charts and other statistical tools.
Automating Validation with OnLIMS
The OnLQC module within OnLIMS is specifically designed to handle these complex statistical requirements automatically.
Most operations mistakenly assume that deploying a complex, generic "Goliath" pharmacological LIMS will fix their QA issues, only to find themselves buried under external consulting hours trying to force pharmaceutical logic onto a metallurgical process. OnLIMS provides the antidote: a specialized, Out-of-the-box engine tailored directly for the 20-30 user mining laboratory. Without relying on external consultants, OnLQC integrates Thompson-Howarth and Shewhart algorithms natively into the background, operating passively as technical security.
When a batch of samples is analyzed, OnLIMS automatically evaluates the QA/QC results against pre-defined tolerance limits. If a standard fails or a duplicate exceeded the allowed variance, the system alerts the technical team immediately.
Benefits of Automation
- Elimination of manual calculation errors in statistical checks.
- Faster validation times, allowing samples to move through the lab more quickly.
- Transparent audit trails for all QA/QC decisions.
- Improved confidence in the final analytical reports delivered to the client.
By integrating QA/QC directly into the laboratory workflow, OnLIMS ensures that data integrity is never compromised, providing the industrial reliability that mining operations demand.